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02 July 2010

52 Weeks to Better Genealogy is a series of tasks devised by Amy Coffin for Geneabloggers. Challenge no.26 was 'Take a stroll through Google Books. Most of us have probably used Google Books in our genealogy research, but have you really taken the time to explore what's there?'

I had used Google Books before, but I had never looked at their section for Magazines, so I started by searching there for ancestry OR genealogy. 'Ancestry Magazine' dominated the search results. To make it easier to find more obscure titles, I changed my search terms to ancestry OR genealogy -"ancestry magazine".

My most interesting find was an article in 'Life' Magazine, 3 Apr 1950, p.89. It is about 81-year-old Gertrude HANSON (in the USA), who combined her hobbies (genealogy and hooking rugs) to produce a beautiful carpet for her stairs. It depicts family houses (with dates) and churches associated with the family. There is a photograph of Mrs. HANSON and the carpet.

I also found references to 'The Rotarian' (official magazine of Rotary International). The August 1980 edition says that the newsletter 'Rota-Gene' provided up-to-date information on genealogical resources and a query section in which members could exchange information.

I love Google Book searches also... haven't found a great description of a relatives home yet BUT I found some interesting information using Google Books - discovered my g uncle was a suspected spy during WW2 in the 'Guy Lidell Diaries' and that he was involved in gun running to Hyderabad in the diary of general Peter El Edroos. GETTING hold of there books was the difficult part. I HAVEN'T checked the magazine section but am going to do it RIGHT NOW! Thanks, Sharn

What an exciting family you have! As for locating books... here is an example of how I found an out-of-print book about my family:

In Trove I searched 'Books, journals, magazines, articles' for title:(hahn) creator:(zischke). In the result, below the details of the book, it said 'At 5 libraries'. Clicking on that text brought up a list of libraries and the relevant call numbers.

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